Summer Trip 2008

After a well slept night delicious morning coffee cooked by Ewas father woke us up. Ewa was still living at her parents house, and her parents were actually quite much into the couchsurfing thing also. That seems to be quite common in Poland that whole family are members of Couchsurfing, Hospitalityclub or that kinda organizations. We spent quite a while talking about the history of Poland, politics etc with Ewas father, while she was somewhere out with another german Couchsurfing guy.

As it was already afternoon we didnt have time to do much sightseeing in Warsaw this time. We just decided to climb to the top of the cultural palace, the ugly 231m soviet skyscraper that is a famous landmark of Warsaw.

We had seen the building many times, but never been inside so now it was about time to do it. Before that a polish-food restaurant of a shopping centre served as a refueling point.

The view from top of the building was cool. As the building is so high, all Warsaw can be seen from the viewing terrace. Pekkas scarf got photographed there also:)

We left Warsaw towards Krakow, and just after Warsaw we are stopping to see that polish friend of us we were supposed to see yesterday. She is spending weekends outside Warsaw, and the place happened to be very near the road we were going to Krakow.. Spending some time here, and then continuing to Krakow.

At the morning we left Riga and drove straight to Kaunas after having a quick breakfast at a gas station. Getting the car out of the yard turned out to be easy by the way, as all the other cars had left..

Seems like more south you go, the better gets the temperature and the worse get the driving habits. 25-30C in Lithuania was lovely, finally a real summer weather. And what comes to driving habits, I started to get used to the eastern european driving style once again, Laura complaining about me overspeeding on the wrong lane passing a long line of trucks :p

We dropped Christophe and the girls to Kaunas, and then realized we dont have any contact information except the email address of the friend who was going to host us in Warsaw. Well, a quick couchsurfing forum message saved the day, 5 minutes later Ewa from Warsaw offered to host us at their yard in a camping van :)

We started driving towards Warsaw in warm and nice weather, but after the polish border it started to rain really hard and the roads were all wet. We were driving like 50km per hour most of the time, and finally arrived to Warsaw after 23 local time.

Some chatting about everything, having a shower and we are quite ready to sleep now.. Its fantastic to be in Poland again, love the country and the people:)

We stayed at the party place just for a while, and went to dump all the stuff out of our car into Baiba´s place. Now our backseat is finally empty, at least until tomorrow.

Baiba left to Germany after the camp, but a few of the people were still staying in her flat. She had left her own bedroom reserved for us, with The finns´ room sign on the door. Lovely:)

As the people that are going with us tomorrow were staying at our other Latvian friend Karlis´s place, we ended up going there. He´s also living quite close to the old town of Riga, and has a nice flat that´s just a bit under construction at the moment. The backyard was quite small and getting the car parked there wasn´t too easy. 2 people showing signals helped, and we slowly managed to get our not too agile car into the yard. Let´s see how hard it is to get it out... The picture tells enough :p

Now it´s just bedtime..

After 3 hours of driving we are in Riga once again. I didnt remember how bad some of the roads in Riga are... :p

Many people from the camp came to Riga, and today we are having an after-camp party with 10-20 people in a soviet-style decorated bar called Leningrad. Tomorrow morning we should be leaving towards Warsaw, and the belgian guy Christophe and 2 finnish girls are coming with us to Kaunas, on their way to Vilnius. I guess the car will be kinda full..

Hmph. Something just has to happen every time, can´t have too good luck :p

Today my workmate arrived Tallinn and I went to pick him up from the airport. We were in a bit of hurry and tired, and I managed to forget my credit card while getting some cash from an ATM machine. Or at least I guess I forgot it there, because I didn´t find it anywhere.

Well, I just killed the card by calling the credit card company, and they will send me a new one. That takes a week and they will send it to my home address, however. Luckily Laura has a card also, so we can survive with that one, I can move the money to that account.. Still not too happy of that extra trouble.

Anyway, we left Laura at Tallinn Zoo so she has something to do while we do our work, and we are progressing quite ok with the work.. So, we should be heading towards Riga in a few hours.

Edit later: Added Laura´s pictures

Back in Tallinn, with nothing special happening on the way here. Now it´s time for a shower:)

The camp is over, and its time to return to Tallinn for one day. Last night I was staying up late.. or actually early.. with a few other people, so I woke up just a few hours ago and missed a walking tour to the Sigulda castle etc.

Because we are coming back to Riga after I have finished the work I have to do there, people were packing some stuff they didnt need right now into our car. So, now our backseat is full of tents, ketchup bottles, cabbages and everything else :)

We are still far from Tallinn, near Riga, so it will be quite late when we arrive Tallinn. That doesnt really matter though, as we dont have anything to do in there today except having a long shower..

Heh, I guess we are looking like a bunch of drunkards at the moment. It started raining much more, so we escaped below a bridge and set up a fire there. Yep, in Latvia you can actually do that without anybody complaining about it.

So, we are sitting under a big highway bridge drinking beer, smoking turkish waterpipe, cooking hot chocolate and chatting. A cool way to spend a rainy day outside without getting wet :)

I guess its time to get to sleep soon though, we should be driving towards Tallinn at some point today. Most of the people at the camp have already left, as tomorrow is a working day in here. Miss some of them already, goodbyes are always sad :)

We also have a new quest for this trip. Some people broke their tent earlier, so they borrowed one from our italian friend Massimo. Massimo lives in Pistoia Italy, and we are going to Italy so.. We have to bring the tent to Massimo, stay at his place and enjoy his 2kg stone-oven beefs.. and Laura will be enjoying his young cat kittens:)

Sigulda. Once again its raining and a bit cold, and Im regretting forgotting my warm jacket at home. I just have a t-shirt and a quite warm fleece blanket that I have been wearing all the time. Its just not the most handy cloth to have.. Gotta love finnish and baltic so called summers. After a week we will luckily be in some warm place where it almost never rains at summertime.

As we were by car, we drove to Sigulda centrum with all the food and camping stuff of the people in the car, and the rest were following us by a bus. We were waiting them in the centrum for a few hours, having a meal at the bistro of a local supermarket and almost sleeping in the car.

When the others arrived, we started looking for a camping place and found a quite nice spot on the river bank next to a bridge. After setting up the tents and making a quick shop visit we set up a fireplace and started preparing some food. Vegetable stew, potatos baked in aluminium foil, chicken meat, sausages.. Mmh..

Its still nice to have a good hotel in Tallinn tomorrow, enough camping in rain for now :p

I havent had much chances to update the blog due to missing gsm signal. Damn I love my gsm operator, they must be the worst finnish operator ever.. And of course our company is using it, so no choise..

Anyway, we spent sunday seeing around Cesis, visiting the ruins of Cesis Castle and so on.

Yesterday we started our boat trip down the river. Using rafts we were floating down the river all day. Luckily the weather was good almost all day, so it was actually quite nice to just float around.

Before the trip we had taken our cars and stuff to the next camping site, so we had to make all the way down there. Seems like somebody had overestimated the speed of the rafts a bit, and it took us all day to reach the camping site.

Late at night we arrived here, had some dinner and spent a few hours sitting by a bonfire, chatting about midsummer traditions, jumping over the fire etc.

At night it started to rain quite heavily again, and right now the weather is still a bit rainy and cold. Everything is packed into the car, and we are just starting to drive towards our next destination, Sigulda.